Lebanese model an improvable precondition to prevent authoritarianism

The
model of Lebanon is indicative of the importance
of state weakness, which is possibly a necessary stage for other
countries in the region after decades of absolutist domination in the
name of the state. عربي

Share this

Read more!

(Comics4Syria/SyriaUntold)[This
series of opinion articles on the relationship between secularism and
authoritarianism is the outcome of a collaboration between
SyriaUntold and openDemocracy’s
NAWA].

It
may sound preposterous to argue that the Lebanese
political model
remains, among Arab states, the most suited to achieving secularism.
On one hand, sectarian quotas characterize Lebanese politics, and the
weakness, dysfunction or absence of state institutions are subject to
recurrent criticism. On the other hand, it is commonplace to
reference a sphere of public liberties in Lebanon, which some
perceive as verging on chaos, and others as lacking a corresponding
legal framework.

What
I am arguing here is that, the realization of these liberties
correlates to the very weak state at which criticism is
conventionally leveled; that is, they are not an achievement of a
modern state as typically claimed by secularists.

Despite
all its pitfalls, the Lebanese
model
serves to elucidate a simple concept relevant to our region. The
absence of the state in Lebanon is tantamountto
the absence of concentration of power.

As
is widely known, the Lebanese
National Pact
(1943) dissipates political power by distributing it across Lebanese
communities. In doing so, it has practically resulted in dispelling
the notions of the state and power altogether. This is contrary to
the prevalent model throughout the region, wherein the concepts of
state and power conflate, with the latter overly encroaching upon the
former. The dissipation of the state appears here proportional to the
concentration of power.

That
said, the concentration of power inevitably comes at the expense of
society, whether through stifling its political potential or
dominating its social symbolic space -- which is often occupied by
religion. In this sense, the nationalization of religion lies in its
uprooting from the symbolic social space under the guise of legal
codification. It also results in dispossessing the public of religion
as common property, just like “nationalized” natural resources
placed at the disposal of the ruling class.

Arab
regimes claim to safeguard religion by controlling it; they may even
claim to protect society from some dangerous interpretations of
religion. They are “secular,” unlike the society which ought to
be ‘disarmed’
of religion. These claims are typically revived once the regime is
endangered.

Almost
automatically, on the other hand, part of resistance to tyranny is to
reclaim religion from that hegemony. Regrettably, this reclamation
does not stem from an aspiration to return religion into public
domain,
but
it is often an Islamist attempt to compete with said tyranny in
nationalizing religion in their favor.

In
the context to of an Islamist-secularist debate, whenever secularists
fail to represent society at large and demand that the symbolic space
of religion be returned to the public domain, they appear as
mouthpieces of the state -- be it an existing state or an envisioned
one.

Additionally,
in such debates, secularists get it wrong when they waiver their
share of the public symbolic space, allowing it to become exclusively
the arena of Islamist contestation. It is necessary to clarify here
that being partners in the symbolic space of religion is different
from being religious. Such a partnership is not ritual and
congregational; it is rather social and cultural practice that is
already realized, and that has only been partly undermined over the
last few decades due to the relentless efforts of competing rivals --
the regimes and contending Islamist groups.

Accordingly,
there are two levels on which we can no longer conceptually
differentiate between Arab tyrannies and Islamist groups: the level
of power, which to both parties is defined as absolute centrality;
and the level of the unsecular nationalization of religion. In the
case of the regimes, this nationalization may take the form of
secular
tyranny
that also involves social engineering, in addition to monopoly over
religion and its proper interpretations.

A
third level of comparison, as noted earlier, is the absence of the
state. Indeed, eclipsing the nation-state in its contemporary
conception is at the heart of tyranny;
and it has always been replaced by the concept of “the
[Islamic]
Nation” (Ummah),
which is not defined in reality but rather in fantasy and utopia.

Such
a dire deficit in the state culture explains many facets of the
ongoing conflict. It is in large part a struggle for power, with the
latter not being defined as state but rather as a prior negation
thereof. Many debates are undergone on two contrasting conceptual
grounds, with one party proceeding from the notion of an envisaged
state and another from that of an existing or anticipated regime.
Religion is thus by definition a means to power, just as the state is
a rentier
state
in which the oligarchy controls all natural resources and dominates
the means of production -- as meagre as they may be.

It
is hardly an accident that tyrannical regimes had displayed hostile
attitudes towards economic modernization, before they were forced to
accept its bare minimum under the banners of market-oriented economy
or state capitalism. The experiences of both models have led to
absolute state monopoly.

The
proliferation of capitalism in the liberal sense necessitates the
demise of rentier state power. Modern production is inherently a
departure from the traditional struggle over resources, including
struggle over public symbolic spaces such as religion, towards
competition over the production market and wealth creation, and
consequently towards a new culture of conflict.

This
shift implies new social questions pertaining to the equitable
distribution of the produced wealth. In its contemporary conception,
therefore, the state is a valve for the management of modern
struggles, so as to ensure social balance and minimum social
protection.

Additionally,
capitalization at the macro level is the ability to produce and
commercialize culture and art as an essential component of public
symbolic space.

We
often maintain a simplistic view of religious reform in the West and
its association with secularism, without taking into account other
considerations that were parallel to it. The shift in the status of
religion, for example, both as a personal spiritual need and as a
public symbolic space, takes place against a background of
accumulation and capitalization of public cultural space; that is,
the more culture and arts make progress toward satisfying spiritual
needs, the more religion becomes part of a whole, and the more its
faith aspect gets promoted at the expense of its monopoly and
nationalization projects. In other words, the more communal religion
becomes, the more personal it is rendered.

These
preliminary observations should not be disregarded from propositions
on secularism today, which continue to indulge in the current
conflicts between
absolutist monopolistic regimes and equally absolutist monopolistic
Islamist groups. Lest this description of Islamists seem like a
preconception, one is bound to point out the infighting between them
over the variety of their interpretations of Islam. Obviously, their
disputes are not grounded in any doctrinal disagreement, so much as
they rather draw on the latter to conceal the monopolistic political
project of each group.

Current
inter-Islamist conflicts serve as a suitable gateway to further
clarification of what nationalization and monopolization of religion
entails, given that tyrannical regimes have so far perfectly played
their role in illustrating absolutist monopoly.

However,
post-Islamist ‘divestment’ requires careful attention to avoid
the return of monopoly, as historical experiences have always shown
bloody backlash. The legal modernization approach will not suffice,
unless it is consolidated by a more comprehensive view of the very
notion of the modern state, including its evolution and development.

A
more comprehensive concept of secularism should explore a deeper
understanding of secularism and democracy, because the correlation
between the two can be traced back to a long process of juxtaposed
developments at the level of capitalization and public societal
competition; as well as the level of the state as an arbitrator that
prevents monopoly from threatening social balances, not as yet
another monopolistic power in rivalry with society and its often
instinctive
balances.

The
model of Lebanon, as described above, is indicative of the importance
of state weakness, which is possibly a necessary stage for other
countries in the region after decades of absolutist domination in the
name of the state.

This
is not a pat on the back of the Lebanese experience, which remains
threatened by Hezbollah’s
militancy
and has always been burdened by the political strife of sectarian
leaders. It merely serves as a reflection on the distribution of
power itself, and on the need to overcome all the manifestations of
the culture of authoritarianism as a culture of monopoly par
excellence.

Time
has come to dispel delusions about the transcendent role of the state
in society, which practically justifies for any power its
confiscation of state and society. The dissipation of the central
state and power may be an essential and necessary condition to
prevent monopoly, and to prevent emerging democracies from regressing
back into it.

When
statehood goes hand in hand with economic and symbolic
capitalization, secularism appears as a society-oriented project, not
a state-centered one. It inherently implies the release of societal
energy to be expressed as production and struggle. Without this, the
state will remain a false metaphor for a monopolistic rentier
project.

Claims
about the state will never hold validity after all the atrocities and
horrors perpetrated in its name. Rather, when the public hears the
word “state,” their minds would immediately conceive of a
forthcoming tyrannical regime.

The
writer’s opinions do not necessarily reflect SyriaUntold’s or openDemocracy's views.

Related

This article is published under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any
queries about republishing please
contact us.
Please check individual images for licensing details.